Free The Death of Ruth by Elizabeth Kata

letter has arrived from the real estate company offering an even higher price for our property. Oh, how lovely—how splendid—it would be if we were able to sell, to move away, leave this hated tract of cultivated garden; to move, live, high up in an apartment, never again to smell soil and grass, the rankness of weeds and the sickly-sweet perfume of flowers. How lovely—how splendid it would be.
    Ruth, I hid the letter away along with others that have come before it. There are five in all. I have never let John know about these letters. It would only hurt him all over again. My heart aches for John but I envy him too, because his life—compared to mine—is clear and straightforward. No sword is held to his head. He awakes each day, I suppose, to frustrations and disappointments and dissatisfactions, but I awake to terrors that John could not even imagine.
    Ruth, I think that I am losing my reason, because although I am chained here—to you—I feel that I am adrift, that I am floating and I am desolate and frightened of my floating state.
    It is useless talking to you like this, Ruth. I know that, I know that it is as useless as describing the pain caused by a bee sting to someone that has never felt a bee sting. I know that it is foolish to do so much of my work here, by the rock-garden, but I get a sense of comfort from being near you, for you alone—now that Ralph has gone—know what I have done and how I have feared and schemed, and only you know how frightened I am of Mr Grey.
    I am frightened of dying too, frightened of God. It is my fear of God that prevents me from taking my life. Ruth, before you went, death held no fears at all, apart from the usual fears of the actual pain of it happening. I imagined heaven as a place beneath another sky—higher, bluer—I thought of heaven as a place where John and I would laugh more often, where we would meet with fresh, never before known and happy experiences, and where it would be forever summer. Now, guilts and lies have made me unfit for heaven. When I die I shall be cast out! Cast out into outer darkness! Doesn’t that sound fearsome? It is! It
is
fearsome.
    Ruth, the day Mr Grey came back here was almost as dreadful as that other day—I mean, the day I dug the hole you lie in. When he arrived, I was here, by you. John was in the house and I saw a man in your garden. For a flash, I had thought it was Ralph come back then I realized that the man was taller, broader and younger than Ralph.
    He, the man, walked about, looking the place over. He glanced in my direction, and called to me, saying, ‘How are you, Mrs Blake?’
    I ignored him and went on pruning the crepe myrtle tree, but he came right up to the dividing fence and I recognized him. I was terribly brave, Ruth, I smiled, pointed to my ears and he seemed to understand what I meant, and he went down the path and rang at our front door.
    Something broke—in my mind. I will never be the same again. Damage has been done to my mind. How could it be otherwise? No human being could suffer such an unexpected shock, and recover completely.
    I steadied down after a while and although I felt certain that Ralph had contacted Mr Grey and told the truth to him, I was overcome by a great feeling of relief.
    I had gone into the house with relief in my heart, because I knew that the end was coming for me. The thing I had dreaded for so long became a welcome thing, and when Iheard Mr Grey and John talking together, all I wanted to do was to hurry, to be with John when he heard what Mr Grey had to tell him.
    Ruth, it is not all over at all! You are still just missing and Mr Grey says that he has not come here about your disappearance. He has come, so he says, because he has sold his own house and has bought one of the apartments they are building next door and decided that it would be simpler to live nearby until his apartment is completed. He told John that he had asked an